


functional impairment

by amnixiel



Series: primum non nocere [2]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Female Reader, Gen, POV Second Person, Reader is a Doctor, Sleep Deprivation, Strong Language, medical drama, reader needs to take a nap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:40:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26918254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amnixiel/pseuds/amnixiel
Summary: You are 28 hours deep in what should have been a 24-hour call, and you aren't totally sure if Reno is actually here, grinning like the Guard Hound that ate the canary, or if you're hallucinating again.It's probably the former. You really need to get some sleep....Re: In which you make a house call on behalf of the Shinra Turks.
Series: primum non nocere [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1964020
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	functional impairment

**Author's Note:**

> Set in an established universe for Final Fantasy VII, primum non nocere:
> 
> You are the doctor that the Turks have secretly hired to clean up the absolute fucking mess that Hojo has made of Rufus Shinra.
> 
> Glossary of medical terms:  
> 1\. Morbidity and mortality conferences (M&Ms) - a monthly conference in the hospital at which all residents, faculty, and department heads in a specialty gather to examine and learn from (and fight about) any medical errors or adverse events that have occurred in the past month

It is officially 7 am, you are 28 nonstop hours deep in what _should_ have been a 24-hour call, and you swear to all the gods and powers that be if _one more_ drunk driver rolls into the emergency department, you will take up the dullest scalpel you can find and _flay them yourself._

Or so you console yourself as you strip off your bloody gloves into the trash can at the trauma bay’s door. Leaving the chaos of the scene behind you (where the anesthesiology team has just arrived, well-rested and sympathetic-eyed, to take over the resuscitation of the patient’s critically underinflated lungs), you walk out of the room and directly into a passing custodian’s cleaning cart.

Narrowly avoiding a headfirst fall into the enormous rubber trash drum, you try to mumble an adequate apology to the poor woman who’s just trying to do her job without getting ambushed by wayward residents. Your tongue, though, stubbornly refuses to coordinate with your brain, stuttering out an incomprehensible jumble of syllables that would barely even qualify as baby babbling. Useless scrap of flesh. You wonder what would happen if you cut it out and grew yourself a new one with Cure materia, then see if it would dare disobey its master. You even have a scalpel in your breast pocket, you could try it now if you wanted—

Wait, wait. You had been in the middle of something. The custodian. Apologizing because you had basically bowled over the innocent lady and her supply cart. Right.

The custodian, blessed woman, seems to understand your mangled intentions and waves away your apologies. Your tired eyes—lazy things, you threatened to pluck them out next, after your treacherous tongue—take a few extra seconds to focus on her face, and when the image of her visage resolves, you can see that she looks concerned. Deeply concerned. “Doctor, are you feeling alright?”

What face are you making that has her so alarmed? You aren’t sure—and you have to consciously stop your hand from rising to feel your face. As if you could somehow decipher your own expression by touch, like your thoughts were emblazoned there across your cheeks in Braille. Hah, Braille. You could be Midgar’s first blind surgeon, wouldn’t that be a fine moniker? Giddy laughter bubbles up in your chest.

A beat too late, you realize that you’re now giggling for no apparent reason in front of the custodian, without having answered her question. You know, like a fucking psychopath.

“It’s been a long night,” you proffer the resident’s classic excuse, willfully bending your manic stretch of teeth into a less terrifying and more placating smile. Or is it technically a long day, since more than 24 hours have elapsed? Hang on, if it’s been that long, then when was your last dose of caffeine?

“Uh, hey, not tryin’ to pass judgments here or anythin’, but if you’re keepin’ track of your on-call hours by ‘doses’ of caffeine, it might be time to sign out to the day shift and get some shut-eye.”

“Hm?” Suddenly, the concerned custodian has vanished from before your eyes, replaced by the similarly concerned face of one of your co-residents. You blink. “Oh. Hey, Zen. When did you get here?”

One of Zen’s dark eyebrows arch towards the wild mass of hair on his head. “Um, when did _I_ get here? You were the one who sat down next to me.”

You stare at him for a moment, uncomprehending. Then, as if someone had cast Teleport on you unknowing, the blurry room around you coalesces into the conference hall. You’re seated among the mass of other surgery residents and attendings, all of whom are enjoying their morning coffee and gossip before the weekly morbidity and mortality (M&M) conference starts.

Including you, apparently. The cheap Styrofoam cup in your left hand radiates a comforting warmth, and you peer blankly into the dark liquid hoping that a Tonberry might rise out of its depths to liberate you instantly from this endless hell of a trauma call.

“I completely forgot about M&Ms this morning,” you mutter, rubbing your eyes with your free hand. You can practically feel Zen frowning at you, and your suspicions are vindicated when you turn to examine his face. He has quite a nice-looking face, really. Especially for a guy from a backwater like Nibelheim. And he’s sweet, too—sweet enough to be concerned by your ongoing plunge into sleep-deprived madness.

“Geez, insult me with one breath and sweet-talk me with the next—this ol’ country boy is gettin’ mixed signals here,” Zen drawls, exaggerating his ‘backwater’ Nibelheim burr. Oops, you’d said that last part out loud.

When you take a second too long to respond with the expected playful chuckle, though, Zen’s ebullience fades rapidly back into a downturned mouth and furrowed brows. “Hey, are you okay? I mean, I know you’re comin’ off of a 24-hour, but you don’t look too great. Maybe we should talk to Director Miles—”

Before he can finish the thought (and you can correct him that you are coming off of a 28-and-three-quarters-hour shift, thank you very much), the lights dim, and the first lecture slide projects in a bright white rectangle on the wall. Zen clamps his mouth shut, but his worried eyes remain trained on the side of your face. You ignore him and take a fervent sip of your coffee, hoping that it’s enough to stave off drowsiness while you’re trapped in this hell of a lecture for the next hour.

You needn’t have worried—not even in your present zombified state could you find the peace to fall asleep while the various heads of department fight vicious ideological proxy wars, wielding their hapless residents as pawns. Someone from vascular surgery lobs a (blessedly) empty coffee cup at orthopedics, and you stifle a yawn. Honestly, they could start a scalpels-out deathmatch in front of you at this moment, and you would probably just sit back and be grateful that it wasn’t you in the ring. You aren’t even sure what they’re fighting about, and you’d rather keep it that way.

_Doctor._

Oh, no. You squeeze your eyes shut and surreptitiously rub your temple with the hand that’s out of Zen’s line of sight. Auditory hallucinations usually don’t start for you until you’re at least 36 hours and two headaches out from your last solid sleep. Is this what everyone means when they say that they’re ‘getting older’?

Doctor.

 _La la la, I can’t hear you, auditory hallucination._ Eyes resolutely screwed shut, you focus on not thinking about the fact that you still have at least another 45 minutes of pointless conflict to suffer through before you can finally check out to the morning team and put your wrinkly gray skull-mush to sleep. But didn’t you watch a movie once about how trying _not_ thinking about something never works? Why are you suddenly thinking about elephants? Belatedly, you hope that your internal monologue is still internal—even to you, this delirious ramble sounds a little nuts.

“ ** _Doctor_**.”

Your eyes snap open because that one _definitely_ came from outside your head—more specifically, from directly next to your ear. Casting your gaze about wildly, you settle your attention on a familiar set of glittering green eyes under a shock of bright red hair.

Having somehow apparated into the space that had recently been occupied by Zen, Reno grins at you and gives you a little finger-wave. “Mornin’, doc.”

For a second, you’re so dumbfounded that you forget to breathe. Reno. Here. In the M&M conference. You’ve got too much of the surgeon’s stoicism in you to actually allow your jaw drop, but it’s a close thing. Witnessing the two dramatically distinct aspects to your professional career crashing together before your eyes— _not literally_ , you remind yourself fiercely as your vision wavers—now you’re _really_ not sure if you’re awake or dreaming.

Or having a nightmare, you think numbly. Because if Reno is here, you are being summoned immediately, at this moment, for an emergency medical consultation by the Shinra Turks—which means you can kiss goodbye to the decadent fantasies of rest and relaxation you’d been concocting about your post-call day.

“We’ve already grabbed your stuff, so you can just follow me.” Reno stands and starts down the row of desks. You follow suit without a word, too dazed by the sudden loss of your imminent freedom to ask questions or notice the dozens of curious stares from your coworkers and teachers tracking you out of the lecture hall.

Luckily, a stack of patient records thrown by one of the orthopedic surgeons explodes across the room, quickly drawing attention back to the brewing faculty brawl. Somewhere, someone threatens to pull a scalpel. Under the screen of ensuing chaos, Reno leads you past the rows of silently cheering onlookers and out of the auditorium with minimal fuss.

“Rowdy bunch in there,” Reno comments with genuine surprise as he closes the door on what sounds to be a screeching catfight. The hallway instantly drops into blissful silence as the soundproofed threshold seals. “’M kinda surprised you’re one of ‘em, what with all your good manners and ‘gentle breeding.’”

This time you’re not sure if it’s shell-shock or fatigue that slows your response, but the result is the same: Reno pauses his usual teasing and glances curiously down at your silence. Dread prickles the back of your neck. You’ve had the chance to practice this interaction twice this morning, and you’ve blown both of them. If you don’t get your act together now, the probing question about your human fragility will follow, and that is _not_ a level of vulnerability that you’re comfortable showing to the Shinra fucking Turks.

Marshaling what composure that you can in the milliseconds before he can see your face, you meet his gaze with the level smile that you’ve presented to him the dozens of other times he’s seen you—albeit not immediately after a prolonged trauma call.

“Sorry,” you say with practiced nonchalance and a winsome tilt of the head. “It’s been a long night.”

You give yourself a hearty pat on the back for that award-winning performance, because Reno accepts the excuse without hesitation and picks up his amiable chatter where he left off. Whatever it was he was talking about, you’d figure out later, once the adrenaline had stopped hammering the blood noisily through your eardrums.

You take another sip of your bitter, lukewarm coffee and brace yourself for whatever mysterious Shinra lunacy that lies ahead. At least you didn’t have to sit through the rest of the M&M.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, dear reader, for making it this far. If you have time, drop me a comment below. :)
> 
> Note: Primum non nocere, the main work in this series, is still in progress. Just very, very slow progress. Crossing my fingers for Nov 2020.


End file.
